On June 12, 2023, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu signed the Nigeria Data Protection Act, 2023 into law (“Data Protection Act” or “the Act”). This marked a significant watershed in the country’s journey towards developing a primary legislative framework for the protection of personal information of natural persons residing or doing business in Nigeria.
Prior to the enactment of the Act, there have been attempts at ensuring the protection of personal data in Nigeria by the relevant government agencies through subsidiary legislation, such as the Nigeria Data Protection Regulation 2019 (“Data Protection Regulation”), issued by the National Information Technology Development Agency (“NITDA”). While the Data Protection Regulation may have filled the gap for some time in Nigeria, being a secondary source of law with a weaker legal and judicial weight, it does not provide enough comfort to foreign investors and partners who are becoming increasingly averse to data porous operating environments and markets.
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